The Senate voted to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee, Pete Hegseth, as defense secretary on Friday night after a high-tempered battle to sway lawmakers in his favor that was almost derailed by accusations about his behavior.

Pete Hegseth confirmed to lead Pentagon after VP Vance casts tie-breaking vote

“Congratulations to Pete Hegseth. He will make a great Secretary of Defense!” Trump wrote on Truth Social after Hegseth’s confirmation.

The United States Senate confirmed Pete Hegseth as the nation’s defense secretary late Friday in a dramatic tie-breaking vote, swatting back questions about his qualifications to lead the Pentagon amid allegations of heavy drinking and aggressive behavior toward women.

Rarely has a Cabinet nominee faced such wide-ranging concerns about his experience and behavior as Hegseth, particularly for such a high-profile role atop the US military. But the Republican-led Senate was determined to confirm Hegseth, a former Fox News host and combat veteran who has vowed to bring a “warrior culture,” rounding out US President Donald Trump’s top national security cabinet officials.

“We have a great secretary of defense and we’re very happy,” Trump said as he boarded Air Force One after surveying fire devastation in California.

Trump said he didn’t care about the dissent from Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the influential former Republican leader — who joined two other Republicans, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, in voting against Hegseth — because the “important thing is winning.”

The Senate’s two moderate Republican women: Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted no. As did Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the former GOP leader.

After Elon Musk made an apparent Nazi salute at an inauguration rally for United States President Donald Trump, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) rushed to defend the SpaceX founder.

ADL faces backlash for defending Elon Musk’s raised-arm gesture

The self-described anti-Semitism watchdog and “leading anti-hate organization in the world” dismissed Musk’s raised arm as “an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm” in a social media post on Monday.

The incident occurred at the Capital One Arena, where Musk raised his arm in a manner that drew widespread comparisons to the infamous “Sieg Heil” salute associated with Nazi Germany. The ADL dismissed the gesture as “an awkward expression of enthusiasm,” prompting backlash from various quarters, including progressive Jewish and Palestinian rights groups

Months earlier, however, Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the staunchly pro-Israel ADL, compared the Palestinian keffiyeh to the Nazi swastika.

ADL faces backlash for defending Elon Musk’s raised-arm gesture

Activists say the contrast between the ADL’s hurried defence of Musk and its efforts to demonise Palestinians and their supporters shows that the group is more focused on silencing voices critical of Israel than it is on fighting anti-Semitism.

“The ADL is being crystal clear about where it stands,” said Beth Miller, political director at Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

“They have made it as clear as possible that they are not a reputable source of information when it comes to anti-Semitism. They are not actually prioritising the protection of Jewish communities at all.”

Donald Trump will be sworn in as U.S. president on Monday, ushering in another turbulent four-year term with promises to push the limits of executive power, deport millions of immigrants, secure retribution against his political enemies and transform the role of the U.S. on the world stage.

Triumphant Trump returns to White House launching new era of upheaval

Trump’s inauguration completes a triumphant comeback for a political disruptor who survived two impeachment trials, a felony conviction, two assassination attempts and an indictment for attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Triumphant Trump returns to White House launching new era of upheaval

The ceremony will take place at noon (1700 GMT) inside the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, four years after a mob of Trump supporters breached the symbol of American democracy in an unsuccessful effort to forestall the Republican Trump’s 2020 defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. The swearing-in was moved indoors for the first time in 40 years due to the extreme cold.
Trump, the first U.S. president since the 19th century to win a second term after losing the White House, has said he will pardon “on Day One” many of the more than 1,500 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

The 40-year-old man had boarded the ICE train in Munich without a valid ticket and wanted to take a smoking break at the station in Ingolstadt.

But he lingered too long over his cigarette and the train doors closed, leaving him with the prospect of being stranded.

He then jumped on to a bracket between two carriages and held on to cables while the train powered on towards Nuremberg at up to 282 km/h (175mph), until federal police brought it to a halt about 30km away.

Witnesses alerted officials and they contacted the train driver, who made an unscheduled stop at Kinding in Upper Bavaria. The intercity express was on a six-hour journey to the northern city of Lübeck.

The man, a Hungarian national, told police he had left his luggage on the train during his cigarette break and did not want to be parted from it.

He was “amazingly” unharmed after his daredevil ride, said a police spokesman.

“A police officer from the state police who happened to be travelling with the train found the 40-year-old Hungarian ‘passenger’ and brought him on to the train,” the spokesman said, adding that he was handed over to federal police at Nuremberg central station.

The man is now being investigated for benefit fraud.

He is also expected to face charges for “an act disruptive to operations”, which is classed as a mere administrative offence.

Federal police have warned the public not to risk their lives on Germany’s trains.

Qatar, Egypt and the United States have intensified efforts to broker a ceasefire to enable the release of hostages taken during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

US President Joe Biden and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said in a phone call Tuesday that both sides needed to show “flexibility” to get a deal over the line, according to a statement from Sisi’s office.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went into a meeting with top security officials late Tuesday to discuss the deal, his office said, while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the “ball is now in Hamas’s court”.

“If Hamas accepts, the deal is ready to be concluded and implemented,” he said.

Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said Tuesday that negotiations were in their “final stages” and mediators were hopeful they would lead “very soon to an agreement”.

However, he cautioned that “until there is an announcement… we shouldn’t be over-excited”.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said during a visit to Rome that there was a “true willingness from our side to reach an agreement”.

Hamas’s October 7 attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

On that day, militants also took 251 people hostage, 94 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

The center of the Palisades is on fire, from structures near Pali High to stretches of residences through surrounding streets — flames jumping from home to home even as firefighters try to extinguish flames.

The fire department will soon ask for all of its firefighters, including those off duty, to report to help — something officials said they hadn’t required in recent years.

Strong winds will only continue, making firefighting efforts a challenge. Aircraft is grounded, leaving personnel unable for a time to fight the flames by air.

It would be days before crews would reach even a small line of containment around the fire.

By 12:32 p.m. Wednesday, just a day after smoke was first spotted, the Palisades Fire had burned about 11,000 acres.

Much of this community would soon be in ruins — and in the days to come, the monster would nearly than double in size again.
A blended view using a Jan. 8 SWIR image with an older (prefire) optical image from Oct. 20, 2024. Intended to help provide context of where the fires are burning. (Satellite image ©2025 Maxar Technologies)

Joyce Lee contributed to this report. Story editing by Paulina Firozi.
Wildfires in Los Angeles

The latest: At least ten people have died as intensely powerful winds fan the flames of multiple wildfires around Los Angeles. The Palisades Fire has destroyed 5,300 buildings and forced more than 30,000 evacuations on the west side of Los Angeles County. Among the multiple fires are the Eaton Fire, the Hurst Fire, the Kenneth Fire and the Lidia Fire. Follow live updates on the wildfires and track their spread in maps.

Donald Trump has said that a meeting is being arranged between himself and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The US president-elect gave no timeline for when the meeting might take place.

“He wants to meet and we are setting it up,” he said in remarks at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Russian news agency Tass quotes Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that the US has not yet formally requested a meeting.

Trump has promised to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine soon after he takes office on 20 January and has expressed scepticism about US military and financial support for Kyiv.

“President Putin wants to meet,” he said on Thursday.

“He has said that even publicly and we have to get that war over with. That’s a bloody mess.”

Trump has nominated Keith Kellogg, a former national security adviser and retired lieutenant-general in the US military, to be special envoy to Ukraine and Russia for his second administration.

Kellogg set out his ideas for how the US could bring about an end to the war in a research paper published by the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think thank, in April last year.

He proposed that Ukraine should only get further US aid if it agreed to participate in peace talks with Moscow.

The paper also suggested, however, that if Moscow refused to take part then the US should continue its aid to Ukraine.

More than 5,600 people were killed and thousands more injured or kidnapped in 2024 due to soaring levels of gang violence in Haiti, the United Nations said.

In a statement released on Tuesday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk condemned the “absolute horrors” faced by the population of the Caribbean country noting rights abuses and corruption are also rife.

Many of the victims were older people accused of causing the death of the leader’s son through alleged voodoo practices. To erase evidence, gang members mutilated and burned most of the bodies, while others were thrown into the sea.

OHCHR also documented 315 lynchings of gang members and people allegedly associated with gangs, which on some occasions were reportedly facilitated by Haitian police officers.

Additionally, 281 cases of alleged summary executions involving specialized police units occurred during 2024.

Armed gangs maintain control of most of the capital Port-au-Prince following an outbreak of violence last year. At the same time, the police are also accused of perpetrating violence against gang suspects, as the ongoing conflict serves to make worse the political instability that has plagued the island nation for decades.

“These figures alone cannot capture the absolute horrors being perpetrated in Haiti but they show the unremitting violence to which people are being subjected,” Volker said.

The UN statement noted that at least 207 people were killed in early December in a massacre orchestrated by the leader of the powerful Wharf Jeremie gang in the Cite Soleil area of the capital.

Israeli airstrikes killed at least 30 people in Gaza, including children, overnight and into Friday, according to hospital and emergency response workers. The strikes came as health workers and the Israeli military exchanged conflicting claims over reported evacuation orders for two hospitals in the largely isolated northern part of the territory.Israeli strikes kill at least 30 in Gaza as ceasefire talks

The Israeli military said three rockets targeted its territory from the Gaza Strip, the latest in a flurry of launches by militants in the devastated Palestinian territory.

“Friday was a harsh day for the residents of Gaza, particularly in Gaza City, due to the continual Israeli bombardment,” civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal declared, adding several children were among the dead. Seven people were killed in an Israeli strike in the Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, Bassal said.Israeli strikes kill at least 30 in Gaza as ceasefire talks

The assertions over Al-Awda and Indonesian hospitals occurred as stalled ceasefire talks to end nearly 15 months of war were set to resume in Qatar.

Staff at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said that more than a dozen women and children were killed in strikes in central Gaza, including in Nuseirat, Zawaida, Maghazi and Deir al-Balah. Dozens of people were killed across the enclave the previous day

Staff at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said that more than a dozen women and children were killed in strikes in central Gaza, including in Nuseirat, Zawaida, Maghazi and Deir al-Balah. Dozens of people were killed across the enclave the previous day, bringing the total killed in the past 24 hours to 56.

United States President Joe Biden has announced that his administration will send nearly $2.5bn in military assistance to Ukraine, as the president rushes aid to the war-torn country before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.

Trump’s November election victory has cast doubt on the future of American support for Ukraine, providing a limited window for billions of dollars in already authorized assistance to be disbursed before he is sworn in next month.

Monday’s aid includes a $1.25 billion military “drawdown package”, which allows the Pentagon to take weapons from US stocks and send them quickly to the battlefield.

The new round of assistance, announced on Monday, includes $1.25bn derived from presidential drawdown authority, which allows Biden to withdraw materials from US military supplies without the need for congressional approval.

Another $1.22bn comes from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), a programme run through the Department of Defense and funded by congressional appropriations.

In addition to the military aid, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen also unveiled $3.4bn in economic assistance on Monday to help Ukraine’s government and prop up its infrastructure.

“I’ve directed my administration to continue surging as much assistance to Ukraine as quickly as possible,” Biden said in a statement. “At my direction, the United States will continue to work relentlessly to strengthen Ukraine’s position in this war over the remainder of my time in office.”